Special Feature
Japan's Universities and the Current Climate for Reform
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With local autonomy comes...more centralized control?
One previously stated goal that had been unexplained has become somewhat
clearer: among reformers of educational and the national bureaucracy, there
were those who wanted to impose strict fiscal regimens on the universities
while at the same time granting and developing local autonomy over all other
matters. In order to do this, the mechanism that had been proposed was some
sort of regional board of overseers to act as an intermediary across the
interests of the government, the former national universities, and the
regional communities which they are supposed to serve. It was, however,
unclear as to who would constitute and run these boards. At the same time,
it was also unexplained just how, once constituted, these boards could
fiscally control former national universities while benevolently overseeing
local autonomy in matters such as program management or the conduct of
teaching and research.
Privatization means...corporatization?
One proposal has been to bring modern business models to the management of
the universities. But can universities and their programs be effectively
managed and evaluated along business principles? Whose principles, expertise
and interests are most applicable in such a process? Government bureaucrats?
Educators with civil servant status? Or individuals and groups from outside
either academia or the civil service, such as business people from
for-profit companies? Or perhaps management from the non-profit third-sector
NGOs? Throughout Japan, national university administrators, faculty and
staff are grappling with such issues as they prepare for the latest wave of
reforms from the Japanese government--this as both new proposals are made
and as reforms already law are made a fait accompli.
Regardless of the possible conflicts of interest which loom, the reforms for
the independence of national universities are starting to fall in place in
very concrete terms. It has been decreed that each university will be
administered by an appointed head manager or vice chancellor who answers to
regional boards. Furthermore, these regional boards of overseers will be
established, in effect, as advisory groups to the government and be given
the somewhat Orwellian title of "hyouka i-in kai" or "standards
committees". These committees will have the responsibility of evaluating
both the performance of university managers and the faculty these managers
oversee.
Foreign language faculty, watch out!
It is these latest specific developments which have to be most troubling for
the teachers at the national universities. The new head managers, who are
supposed to come from science and/or business backgrounds, will be charged
with ensuring a "results-orientated efficiency" at the schools under their
management. "Results-oriented efficiency" seems to be a rather ominous term,
hinting that the government really has not resolved the paradox of wanting
tight fiscal control while at the same time launching and fostering
something other than contrived local autonomy. It also seems almost a matter
of course that perceived non-conformance to prescribed "results-oriented
efficiency" could be used to justify cutting funds to universities, the
cancellation of programs and fields of study, and personnel cuts correlated
with the previous two. Both the head managers and the standards committees
who "advise" them will be expected to ensure improvements in "productivity"
from the faculty. In that connection, work performance will be periodically
evaluated based on the results of students' evaluations, the quantity and
prestige of papers presented and published, and a third, vaguely defined
category loosely translating as "community service requirements".
This may well leave teachers in certain fields at the national universities
harried and on ever shakier ground in trying to work out a career. For
example, one reason why there are a large number of jobs teaching EFL at
universities is that so much English is a required subject, both in programs
where it might be expected (such as teacher training courses), and in
general education curricula. In any evaluation scheme based on students'
perceptions, teachers may be put in a difficult position, to say the least,
since students taking courses only because they are required can prove to be
difficult 'consumers'. Unsatisfied with the university, its programs and its
general education curriculum, students could very easily take out their
frustrations on a hapless teacher who may actually have very little control
over most matters. University head managers and standards committee members
with little or no expertise in or understanding of foreign language teaching
could use student evaluations of programs, courses and individual teachers
to undercut further the already low status of the thousands of foreign
nationals teaching English and other foreign languages.
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 Charles Jannuzi
Charles Jannuzi is a lecturer in EFL and cross-cultural topics at Fukui University. He
also co-edits the publication,
Literacy Across
Cultures. He has lived in Japan for over 12 years.
 Bern Mulvey
Bern Mulvey is a doctoral candidate in creative writing at University of Missouri-Columbia, USA
and also teaches there. He taught for six years at Fukui University.
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